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Hundreds of fish wash ashore at AMP
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Posted on Jul 29 2005
Hundreds of dead fish washed ashore at the Micro Beach near the American Memorial Park last Wednesday noon.
American Memorial Park site manager Chuck Sayon told Saipan Tribune yesterday that the fishkill was reported to him Wednesday morning by one of his site maintenance officers. He said they immediately inspected the area and found several dead tilapia and milkfish floating on the shores near the park. He said they also found one dead barracuda among the other small fish.
They quickly called the Division of Environmental Quality, which responded at 1pm. Marine biologist Peter Houk responded to the call and immediately assessed the situation.
Houk said they took extra samples of the water for analysis, aside from the weekly sampling they conduct to test the beach waters of Saipan. Houk said he immediately analyzed the water and found a huge decline in the level of oxygen.
He said one of the theories they are looking at is that the fishkill may be due to the previous days’ bad weather. Thunder and rain may have roiled the waters, stirring up the sediments and reducing the level of oxygen in the water, he said.
Although the exact source of the problem could not be identified yet, DEQ is not discounting the possibility that discharge from the sewers near the area could also have contributed to the death of the fish.
“The park is not actually happy with the sewer system in the park,” said Sayon, adding that the sewer design in the area is a public health hazard and that the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. should have fixed it a long time ago.
Houk said the cause could also be bacteria related, which ate up the oxygen in the water. He said this was not the first time that a fishkill happened in the CNMI but it was the first time it happened in a wetland.
He said back in 2001, 2003 and 2004, Smiling Cove also had some fish thrown out of the water due to strong waves and heavy storm, but this week’s occurrence was the first on a wetland. “It’s pretty weird,” he said.
He said right after the analysis at the DEQ office, Houk went back to Sayon to present his analysis.
